Alexandria the Great
by NoxAstrum
Summary: Discontinued :l
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

"Alexandria!" my dad called out of the window from the kitchen, "You need to finish moving your boxes into the van!" I grumpily got up off of the grass and paused my iPod. I had been listening to an audio book, since real books didn't tend to work out that well for me. I have a nasty case of dyslexia, and all of the little letters dance around the page when I am trying to read. Okay, I'm going to try not to get off topic.

I went back into the kitchen and stared at the pile of boxes that contained almost everything I owned. I sighed, then started carrying them towards the van. We were moving from dreary little Parkersburg, West Virginia, to the most amazing city in the U.S. That's right- New York, New York. We had been living in Parkersburg for about a year after living in California, and I will tell you right now, don't try it. My dad had wanted a change of surroundings since he had been living in San Francisco for around 20 years. I had lived in California almost my entire life, since I was only thirteen. Being used to the city, Parkersburg was like another planet. One where the aliens went hunting and listened to country music all the time. Most of our neighbors still had dial-up. It seemed like nothing happened. Ever.

Now I know this sounds kind of odd, but I had a feeling that something big was going to happen there, something that was going to change my life. This happens a lot. I get a vibe coming from… well, I guess it's the future. For example, when something that I won't appreciate is about to happen, I get an odd feeling when I think about the advent. It is sort of like that one millisecond you have between stubbing your toe and actually feeling it, that millisecond where you have just enough time to think "crap." The future isn't what I'm interested in though. I like the past muchbetter. There's just so much we can learn from it, plus the fact that the past has a tendency to repeat itself.

When I thought about moving to New York, I wasn't just happy about being back in city limits. I felt like I was expecting even more out of it, but the issue was that I wasn't sure exactly _what _I was expecting. I never know what I'm supposed to be expecting. I put the box that I had been carrying into the van, then went back inside and grabbed another, not being very gentle. It turned out that wasn't a smart move, since the bottom of the box hadn't been secure and everything came flying out of the bottom.

"Great," I muttered under my breath. I bent down and started scooping up a bunch of Glee DVDs and a ton of old CDs that I had packed into the box earlier that week. I taped the bottom of the box together, but the stuff back in, and then taped the top shut too, just to be sure. I wondered how hard it would be to open the box again without totally destroying it.

Several trips later, we had everything packed into the moving van. I went through the house again, checking everything over. When I got to my room, I paused. I looked around, but the room was empty. Not a thing was in it, just the way it was supposed to be. I always tended to forget something somewhere, so I slid my closet door open and took a glance around.

On the back wall of the closet, there was a sticky note. When I found the note, the odd feeling I had just a moment before went away, so I knew it was of some importance. I picked up the note and examined it. The note was pale yellow with little music notes dotting the outside. I'm severely nearsighted along with the dyslexia, so I had to look under the purple frames of my glasses and squint in order to read the note.

"_One loved by all shall meet his end,_

_One will be betrayed by another called friend,_

_One love shall conquer all,_

_Before Olympus begins to fall."_

My first thought was "oh crap," but then I realized that I had no clue why this would be bad news. I had never heard anything about this before, but getting a feeling that this had something to do with moving to New York. Deciding that it was important, I put it into my pink wallet that I kept in my backpack.

I also randomly decided that a doughnut would be really good right now. Doughnuts are just so good. Remembering that we had a case of those little white powdered doughnuts that make your fingers messy, I headed to the remaining box full of food and got the box of doughnuts out.

"Ready to go?" my dad asked while I got a doughnut.

"You bet I am!" I said, then shoved the doughnut into my mouth and jumped into the passenger seat of the moving truck.

I was really bored. Really, really bored. We had just left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It took about three hours to get there. Seven hours to go. _Seven hours. _Let me tell you this right now: I do NOT mix well with sitting still for a long time. I have a serious case of ADHD, and I'm always so jumpy. I didn't really have a clue on how to pass the time, so I put my iPod in again. It was low on power, but I didn't have anything better to do. I would charge it when I got settled into our new apartment.

I started to listen to some Glee songs, but once I had repeated them all at least twice, which is saying something since I had so many, I listened to the fourth Pendragon book on audio. I really loved that series, and I reread (or should I say relistened?) them all the time even though I had finished all ten of them. This cycle continued for a long time, with me occasionally asking my dad how much longer it would be like I was a little kid.

We stopped in some small town on the New York and Pennsylvania border for dinner. For a while after that, I rolled my window and enjoyed the scenery. My long, straw colored hair whipped at my face. Not only is it the color of straw, it's pretty brittle as well. According to some people, my hair complements my eyes since my eyes are a shiny brown that's nearly the color of a clean penny. But most people don't care about that since they only usually notice the purple frames of my glasses and abundance of freckles. Eventually, it started to get dark out since it was only March. When it got dark, it also got cold. That means the window went back up. I could barely stand the winter temperatures of West Virginia when I was all huddled up in layers of clothing. In my opinion, anything below 90 degrees Fahrenheit is cold. **(A/N It's true!) **Los Angeles was much warmer.

Finally, after hours of waiting, I saw our destination. Through the windshield, there was a dark, starless (I found it strange to be able to see all of the stars) night. The highway stretched in front of us, and at the end a bright city.

Here I come, New York!

**So what do you think? I need reviews! **

**I have redone this chapter, so tell me if there are any funky bits or mistakes. This story is now going to run parallel to my cousin SomniumAstrum's Gem of the Sea. Somnium also helped me a ton as far as writing this goes. Now here to do the disclaimer is the mistaken magician that did the disclaimer for one of her chapters! Oh, and he's not an actual magician, but don't tell him that.**

**Mistaken Magician: NoxAstrum doesn't own PJO, or much else mentioned in this fanfic! She does however have a cat named Hermes! *He throws a rubber ball at the ground, and a huge cloud of pink glitter engulfs the stage. You can't see him leave, but you can certainly hear him stomp off. What kind of magician is that?***

**Me: …I think he's getting better. But anyway, Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One has been updated. If you haven't read it recently, you may want to reread it to look for some changes.**

**Chapter Two**

The final bell rang, and a pushed through the crowd of kids in the hallway to get to my locker. I had been living in New York for an entire school year, and it had been awesome. Today had been the final day of eighth grade, and I wanted out. School was great and everything, but you get sick of it after so many months. There was better ways to spend my time than in stupid geometry class. Reading had naturally been pretty bad too, but I managed a C- which was good considering my dyslexia. But I'm getting off topic.

I got my coat that I wore in the cold 80 degree weather and my backpack, and headed out of the building. People always thought it was weird that I was always wearing long sleeves and a jacket. It's true that I get cold easily, but there was another reason to why I wore long sleeves. When I was little and living in San Francisco, a stinking _griffin _attacked me. Of course, the police hadn't believed me. They said it was a rouge grizzly bear that somehow ended up in the city, and attributed the fact that I saw a griffin to an overactive imagination. I still had the scars all over my forearms, and most people think you cut yourself when they see slash marks on your forearms. So I hide them.

I walked down the streets, heading to my apartment. My dad was out of town for the week, so I had been hanging around doing whatever. Mostly watching TV and going out to different museums. I could spend all day in museums. Once I was up the stairs and in the apartment, I threw my bag into the closet in my bedroom just to celebrate that it was summer. I put my coat on the back of the couch, and got my hoodie out instead. It was a Wicked hoodie, since I had seen it live. I loved Wicked, especially their song Defying Gravity. And I liked the Glee version of that song too. I decided that I would probably hang out in a museum today as well, I grabbed my iPod and my key to the apartment. Locking the door behind me, I jogged down the stairs and into the city.

Before I got out of the building, I threaded my iPod's earbuds between my hoodie and my shirt so they didn't bounce around while walking. Then was the issue of deciding where to go. I had spent hours in all of the New York museums, but I'd have to say that I liked the American Museum of Natural History the best. I didn't like natural history as much as human history, but the museum was pretty cool. I had spent so many afternoons there that I knew where everything was, and what I liked the best. That ended up being my pick, and I left the apartment building. I didn't know it would be the last time I was there for a long time.

oooo

I was sitting on a bench in the Hall of North American Forests, but only because it was deserted. That in itself was odd since usually every part of the museum had tourists romping around in it. While I sat on the bench, I was skimming the songs on my iPod. Nothing really caught my eye so I shut it off. Just then, two girls around my age came crashing through the exhibit.

"Where has it gone?" one of them shouted. The one who spoke had blonde hair, and the other had dark brown. I couldn't determine the colors of their eyes since they were moving fast. When they ran by me, the hallway that they were running towards seemed to explode. But it didn't, and I soon realized that a huge shape had crashed through the wall. The two girls backpedaled, and started to go towards the hall they came from. Something huge burst through that wall, too. The dust from the destroyed walls cleared, and I almost had a panic attack. Near each hole in the wall there were griffins, just like the one that had attacked me all those years ago. In a way, I had been hoping that myths from my history book were fake and that it really had been an overactive imagination. But I've never forgotten anything before, and the griffin was all too real to be my imagination.

I jumped to my feet even though I had no clue what I would do. The two griffins were approaching slowly, looking as if they were trying to be cautious around the two strangers in front of me. I absently wondered what those girls must've done to earn that, but quickly snapped my attention back to the current situation.

"Don't you have your bow or anything?" the brown-haired girl asked, managing to sound annoyed despite the situation. The one who had just spoken was now turned towards me, and I realized she looked a lot like I did. We both had freckles, a 'string-bean' body build, copper-brown eyes, and we were both average height. If she had the straw hair and a similarly shaped face to mine, we may have passed as sisters.

"No. Don't you think I would have used it by now if it was with me? I don't like taking weapons near mortals," the other managed to say without moving anything but her mouth. I knew from experience that doing so was harder than it looked. This statement didn't really mean anything to me at first, but once I thought about it for a second I realized that she had just called the general population mortals, almost like she wasn't one. Being obsessed with history I knew a _ton _of mythology, such as Norse, Aztec, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Babylonian, Mayan, and a little Native American. Most people would forget 99% of what they learned about this stuff, but I didn't. No idea why, though.

"Lyn, I'm never letting you drag me to a museum ever again."

"I told you not to call me Lyn!" the blonde one nearly yelled, "Why must people insist on calling me Lyn? Why can't they just say Aislin?" the one that was obviously named Aislin said.

"Because it's a mouthful! Now stop complaining or I'm going to get distracted and we will both die horrible deaths in a _museum,_" my look-alike said, but soon noticed that I was standing there. Aislin caught her looking away and was undoubtedly going to criticize her for managing to get distracted anyway, but she soon saw me as well.

"Oh, _di immortales._ A mortal. That's all we need to muck this up even more. Even if we get out of here alive, we will have some sort of mortal telling some crazy story about us shooting down whatever these griffins look like to mortals and then we will be on the news for weeks. And I bet there's cameras in here that will capture our appearances too, so there will be posters too! And they're not even good posters!" Aislin ranted. The Hall of North American Forests was fairly large so it had taken a while for the griffins to creep up since they were going so slowly, but they were practically on top of us now. I wish these people would just figure out what they were going to do instead of bickering. I needed to get them back on task, though I wasn't quite sure how. I decided to interrupt their little argument.

"What in the world are you talking about?" I asked.

"Just back away slowly, and maybe the things we are about to get rid of won't hurt you," Aislin said. These two were impossible to get on task. I had ADD, but these two were a lot worse than I was.

"I can see the stinking griffins!" I snapped. Both of them looked stunned, but I was pretty sure that it wasn't from me snapping at them. I guess it was unusual for a 'mortal' to be able to see the griffins. But I didn't really care that I had just given up something I had tried to keep to myself for so long since it made their attention go back to the griffins, and for the first time they seemed to notice how close they were.

"That's it!" Aislin announced excitedly, "Brianna, don't you have that small CD that you filed down into a dart when you were mad on the train?" she asked. A CD dart sounded dangerous. And I definitely wouldn't want to be on a train with Brianna while she had any sort of sharp objects.

"Oh yeah! I put it back into my CD case behind the others so that security wouldn't notice. But I don't think I could reach into my bag without one or both of the griffins attacking. Last time I fought one of those, it attacked as soon as I moved."

"Good point. I'll get it," Aislin offered. She managed to get into the drawstring bag that was on Brianna's back while Brianna and I both stood really, really still. It wasn't easy for me, and I'd bet it was even harder for Brianna. I noticed that the drawstring bag actually had a Wicked logo on it much like the sweatshirt I was wearing, and I suddenly didn't mind Brianna quite as much as I had about five seconds before.

"Ow! That thing is sharp. How did you even sharpen it like that on the train?" Aislin said, and when Brianna was about to answer she interrupted her. "Scratch that, I don't want to know. I'm going to hand the disc to you, so move your hands _slowly _towards your back. And be careful of the edges."

Brianna rolled her eyes, and started to reach back. I heard several footsteps coming from the hallway, and moved my eyes to see that there were several security guards coming. They got close enough to see the griffins, then stopped dead. I heard several shouts from them, most containing 'bear'. How did I know? Brianna finally grabbed the disc, and nearly dropped it when she cut herself on the edges.

"I told you to be careful of the edges," Aislin hissed. Briana masterfully rolled her eyes yet again, then moved to take aim. I noticed that the disc wasn't a normal one. It wasn't made of the usual silver plastic or whatever that stuff is. It was a gold bronze color, and there was blood on it from the cuts on Brianna's hands. It certainly looked sharp enough to cut even a hair that fell on it. With a quick motion, Brianna sent the bronze disc hurtling into the air. It went right through one of the griffin's necks, and it dissolved into a ugly little sandstorm that soon disappeared and left the reek of sulfur.

"Come with us!" Aislin shouted. They darted up the hallway, and I had no choice but to follow since the other griffin decided to attack as soon as Brianna had launched the disc into the air. Brianna fell into step next to me as soon as I was close enough that she wouldn't have to slow down too much.

"Have you ever heard of Camp Half-Blood?" she asked me without slowing down. I shook my head. "I'm not surprised. Well, do you know any Greek mythology?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah," I said while trying not to run into any unfortunate tourists that were evacuating the building due to a 'bear-attack'. Luckily for us, they were running around trying to get out so nobody cared that we were running. "I know Greek and a ton of other kinds."

"Well, Greek is the only kind that matters," **(A/N Well, at least it's the only kind that matters in this fanfic :3) **she said, looking somewhat relieved that she didn't have to explain the whole of Greek mythology. We exited the building, and pushed our way out of the crowd of tourists and spectators. Aislin was waiting for us next to the street. "The Greek myths are real," Brianna said, and I stopped abruptly. I wanted to think that she was crazy, but I knew she was right. I probably would have stopped to question her, but right then the griffin burst out of the building. The crowd of people scattered and screamed as the griffin prowled around, most likely looking for us.

"We'll discuss this later," Aislin said, then promptly reached into her pocket and pulled out a gold coin. It looked like a drachma from ancient Greece, but there was a picture of the Empire State building on it. "_Stethi," _she yelled out, "_O harma diaboles!"_ I understood what she said, since I knew Ancient Greek as well as Latin. I just wasn't happy about what she said. Stopping the "Chariot of Damnation" didn't sound like a good idea.

Aislin then tossed the drachma onto the pavement. The Greek coin went straight through what looked like a hard surface, then the area around it seemed to bubble. The stretch of bubbling asphalt widened into about the size of a car, and that's what materialized out of it. Well, a grey taxi to be exact. It sort of looked like it was made of smog or thick smoke since it was almost transparent. We hurried in before the griffin could catch up with us. To my surprise, the cab actually felt pretty solid, and my fears of falling through the seat vanished. But then I looked up at who was driving the taxi.

"Hello, delicious little demigods," said the sister with a tooth.

"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Aislin announced, and the Gray Sisters started to race through the streets of Manhattan. Worst cab ride _ever._

oooo

I was so glad to be out of that death trap. Why would they think it's a good idea to drive a cab when there's only one tooth and one eye between the three of them? Aislin flexed her fingers, trying to get them to loosen after she had hung on to the seat with a death grip the entire time.

"Did we really have to get the Gray Sisters to drive us here?" Brianna complained, even though she was just as flustered as we were. Aislin ignored that comment.

"Well, welcome to camp… You know what, we don't even know your name," Aislin realized.

"That's a first," Brianna scoffed while Aislin looked upset. My guess would be that she wasn't good with names. "You've probably put together by now that I'm Brianna and she's Aislin, right?" she asked me.

"Yeah," I said as we began to walk up the hill directly in front of us. "That's a really big pine tree," I said, then realized that I had said it out loud instead of just thinking it.

"That's Thalia's Pine. It doesn't really matter at the moment. Do you have either ADD or ADHD?" Aislin questioned.

"ADD," I said, "And my name is Alexandria."

"Cool name," Brianna said, "Do you mind if I call you Alex?" she asked.

"Sure," I said. Brianna looked at Aislin with a smug expression on her face. She was probably going to say something about it too, but we reached the crest of the hill before she could say anything. At first glance, the place looked like a farm. In a way I was right, since there actually was a strawberry farm there. But when I looked closely, I saw a lot of odd things like a rock climbing wall, a ton of cabins, and people attacking each other in an arena. There was a bunch of other stuff too, but it was really too much to take in at once.

"How about we take you down to Chiron and see what he says," Aislin decided, then started to walk down the hill. Brianna felt like skipping, so that's what she did. Aislin was only walking, so she was quickly passed up. After a few minutes, I managed to catch up with Aislin.

"One of the Grey Sisters said something about 'delicious demigods'. Is that supposed to mean that I'm a demigod too?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.

"Yes. That's why you're here," she said.

"How am I supposed to know who my parent is?" I asked, more concerned about that than the camp. Aislin sighed.

"Your godly parent will claim you. They have to, thanks to Percy Jackson. But that's another story."

"Who is your godly parent?' I asked her.

"Athena. And Brianna is a daughter of Euterpe, the muse of-"

"Yeah, music. I know the myths… or facts." I interrupted. I hadn't been surprised at all when she said that her parent was Athena, though I was a bit surprised by Brianna's.

"You seem to be taking this pretty well," Aislin said. I nodded.

"Once you think about it, it all makes perfect sense. And I wasn't expecting Brianna's mom to be the muse of music."

"Well, that's just because you haven't heard her sing. And she can play a ton of different instruments," she said. I played piano, and knowing how hard it can be to read the notes with dyslexia, I was also surprised that she played so many instruments. Brianna was just one of those people that you really couldn't judge by how they acted most of the time.

By this time, we were walking up the stairs that were on the front of the big sky blue farmhouse. Brianna was talking to who must've been Chiron. I had known who Chiron was, but it still startled me to see someone with a horse's body attached to them.

"Hello, young demigod, and welcome to Camp Half-Blood," the centaur said.

"Umm… nice to be here?" was my weak answer. He laughed, which didn't make me feel any better. He turned to address Brianna and Aislin.

"You're lucky that you found someone, or else the punishment for not coming directly to camp would've been worse," he said. I guess that us… demigods couldn't go around without attracting ugly beasts like the griffins. Brianna looked kind of peeved that she wasn't being handed a medal or something, but Aislin looked like she was going to cry. "If there is in opportunity to get out of camp in the near future, then you are to be excluded from it," he decided. Then he turned my way. "I'm going to have someone show you around camp, then take you to dinner when it's time." He looked around to see who was nearby. There were a few people that looked busy while they hurried towards some canoes on the nearby lake as well as someone around my age that was walking past the farmhouse towards the cabins.

"Poppy!" he called out. The girl who had been walking towards the cabins stopped and looked up. When she realized that it was Chiron who had called to her, she came up onto the porch with the rest of us. Poppy had straight black hair and brown eyes, and for the most part looked pretty normal.

"Yeah, Chiron?" she asked.

"I need you to show Alexandria around camp," he said.

"Uh… okay," was her unsure answer. She looked over at me and gestured for me to follow. "Um… hi, my name is Poppy. I'm new to camp, in fact, I've only been here for about a week, so I have no idea why Chiron has asked me to show you around. I barely know everything right now," she said, and trailed off into a laugh.

"I think Chiron just needed someone to show me around," I said, "And it doesn't matter if you don't know everything about camp since I know even less."

"True…sorry, I'm not in the best mood today…" she said, "I had so much stuff to think about last night, I didn't sleep a wink."

"That doesn't sound too fun," I said as I looked around. We were headed towards the main area that contained the cabins and all that other wonderful stuff that I didn't know a thing about. I could get pretty nosy at times, and it could really bother me if I know absolutely nothing about a subject. Unless it's some sort of math, like algebra or geometry. I could care less about that sort of stuff.

"You're right about that," Poppy said through a yawn, "My dad is Hypnos, the god of sleep. I take my sleep seriously… when I don't get sleep, it's not pretty."

"That's cool," I said, then caught myself, "Well, not the part about when you don't get sleep. What are they doing?" I asked as I looked over at the arena.

"They're just practicing their sword fighting skills… Personally, I'm a lot better at archery. Later today or maybe tomorrow we can figure out what sort of activities you're good at," she said while staring into the distance. I looked at the arena for a while longer and watched as a tall guy with white-blonde hair attacked a training dummy. I wasn't really a match for any of those people. I was fairly athletic, but I couldn't even imagine myself doing what the others in the arena were doing. After that , Poppy showed me all around camp and introduced me to several people. I couldn't remember half the names though. We were walking away from another person that she had just introduced me to when a horn rang.

"The conch horn means that it's dinner," Poppy explained. We weren't that far away from the pavilion where they ate, but there were still many campers that were there before us. A few of them were sitting at the tables near the braziers, but a majority of the campers were having dinner on the grass like a picnic. Poppy waved goodbye to me, then headed off to a friend of hers that was in the Persephone cabin. I managed to find Aislin, Brianna, and a couple of their friends to sit with. Aislin and Brianna started to argue about dill relish versus sweet relish.

This was going to be an interesting summer camp.

**Okay! NoxAstrum, my cousin, has a ruined computer. So I helped her write this chapter and post it (You're welcome, Nox). She can read stuff from her kindle, but she can't do anything else. It's tragic. **

**The reason that I didn't want to wait for her to find a solution is because this story goes into a group that consists of my story, Gem of the Sea, and my friend's story, Flower of Sleep. So this needs to be worked on. Nox hopes that this tremendously long chapter makes up for the lack of chapters for so long when she didn't have any clue what the heck she wanted to do with the story. It may be a while before another chapter of this comes up, but when it does it will be long like this one. Hopefully.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO, Nox doesn't own PJO, and frankly, only Rick Riordan owns PJO. I own Brianna, Aislin, Seth (the guy Alex saw beating up the training dummy), and an assortment of other characters you haven't met yet. Nox owns Alexandria. My friend SpiritusAstrum owns Poppy, Genvieve (Poppy's Persephone Cabin friend), and even more characters that aren't in this story yet. Most of the plot for all tree of the stories belongs to me. This is confusing, so I'm just going to stop blabbering.**

**Review in pity for Nox and her poor, broken computer! And for free virtual marshmallows!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

After we ate dinner, Brianna dragged me over to Chiron and pestered him until he told me to go and try out the different activities. It looked to me like Brianna easily got on Chiron's nerves, though the guy -or centaur- was cool about it.

"C'mon," Brianna said as she dragged me towards the archery range. We arrived at the edge of the range and stood completely still for about thirty seconds.

"Are we going to stare at them?" I asked. I have no time for patience. It seems as if history is always being made.

"Nope," Brianna said, "We're going to see if you're any good at it." We walked over to a storage shed and started to look around.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" I asked her while we were looking at the bows hung on the walls. Brianna shrugged.

"They never told me that I couldn't," she replied as she lifted an average-sized wooden bow off of a rack as well as a quiver of arrows. She stepped outside again, so I followed her. "See if you can hit that target"

"Are you going to show me how?" I asked her.

"What's with all of the questions? And no, because I can't figure out how to use the worthless twigs. You should get one of those people over there to help you." She vaguely gestured to the rest of the archery range. I frowned at her.

"You know how to work it," I said, "and you don't have to shoot the arrow. Just show me _how._" Brianna sighed, then took the bow out of my hand.

"You hold it up, put a finger on each side of the arrow shaft, pull the arrow back, and release. I can't aim it to save my life." She gave me the bow back. I repeated what she had demonstrated. The arrow didn't hit the target, but it wasn't that far off. "See what I mean? We should go somewhere else."

With that, I was dragged around a majority of the camp. I tried, and failed, at canoeing. The mythology, history, and Greek classes were incredibly easy. They consisted mainly of things I already knew. My dad had always been really into history, so he had lectured me about it on every occasion he got and I remembered it.

In a way, remembering everything is sort of a curse. Sure, it was great for school, but there are many things that I would love to forget. The strange thing was, my memory hadn't always been as keen as it is now. I was able to remember anything I wanted by the time I was five, but by the time I was eight or so it seemed like I absolutely _couldn't _forget anything. Another issue with the memory is that I'm painfully aware of every promise that someone has made and everything that they said they would do. Ordinary people can just forget, but I can't. Yet again, I'm off topic.

I was also decent at art. Most of the other things I was sort of mediocre at, including sword fighting.

"You hold it like this," Brianna said. I tried to imitate what she was doing. "It's okay if you're not any good at first. I wasn't very good at all when I first came here, though that was a long time ago." I looked at her.

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Too long," she said with a humorless laugh. I decided to change the topic though my curiosity was urging me to ask her more questions. After several more minutes of showing me what to do, she asked me to defend myself.

"I'm not that wonderful, so you don't have to worry," she assured me. She brought the sword down. To my surprise, I reflexively blocked it. Brianna moved through several series of attacks, all of them more difficult than the last. Some part of my brain recognized the patterns that Brianna's sword was moving in, though I really didn't have any part of it. It was like a massive feeling of Deja-Vu that I couldn't control at all, and I wasn't really myself. Brianna stopped attacking after a while.

"… How did you just do that? You were struggling while I was showing you how to move with it," Brianna said, "Then it was like BOOM and you went all sword-masterish!" She exaggerated her sentences with arm movements, so when she said 'BOOM' her arms were flailing around. She let go of her sword and it stuck into the ground.

"I don't know how," I admitted, not wanting to tell her about the Deja-Vu feeling. That happened pretty often, where I knew something that I shouldn't know. And I had really strange dreams. They were always hazy, but they were reoccurring. The dreams were always vague feelings, mostly the notion that I was either riding on a horse or that I was too hot. I don't even know why I knew that it felt like I was riding on a horse, since I've never been on one before.

"Well," Brianna said, "it was really cool. I think we're done with the activities. Come back to my cabin with me and I'll find some clothes that you can borrow from me for right now." She headed back towards the rows of cabins. After a brief glance back at the arena, I followed suit.

She led me past the dining pavilion and a lot of cabins. They were all different shapes, sizes, and colors. We walked past one that grass growing on the roof and one that was white with thousands of different colors reflecting on the surface.

"This is my cabin," Brianna announced. We were stopped in front of a large, round cabin that was bronze with nine carvings of women over the door. Aislin had told me that Brianna's mother was Euterpe, the muse of music, so I assumed that the cabin belonged to the nine muses. She pushed open the door and let me inside.

The inside of the cabin looked like a old-fashioned theatre. Half of it was a stage, while the other half consisted mostly of old chairs with red velvet cushions. The first curtain on the stage was opened, revealing a grand piano, while the second was closed. I noticed that there weren't any beds.

"Welcome to the Muse cabin," she said, confirming what I thought. "It's actually not that messy for once, since I cleaned it up for inspections right before the summer campers came. C'mon, my stuff is back here." I followed her behind the second curtain. There were several beds set into the rounded wall. They had red velvet covers, so they looked a lot like the chairs in front of the stage. On one side sat a few dressers, a writing desk, an nearly abandoned bureau. Along with the actual furniture, there was a lot of stuff just sitting around including a karaoke machine, a Wii disconnected from the TV sitting next to it, several DDR dance mats, an assortment of guitars, and a few telescopes. The walls above the beds were covered in little cubbies filled with scrolls, and there was a sliding ladder attached to the bottom of the shelves.

"What are those about?" I asked, looking at the scrolls. Brianna shrugged.

"I don't know, never bothered to look," she said, then started to search in her drawers for things that I could borrow. I had no idea how she could've managed to ignore the scrolls. Even though I was dyslexic and I had to keep taking my glasses on and off in order to read, the first thing I would've done would have been to try and read at least a couple of them.

"Here," Brianna said, handing me a stack of clothes. I glanced at what the pile consisted of; a couple pairs of dark skinny jeans, a Wicked shirt, a Beatles shirt, a Glee 'Gleek' shirt, and a bunch of brightly colored tank tops. Brianna and I were nearly the same size, with the only difference being that she was about an inch taller, so all of the clothes would fit me.

"You like Glee?" I asked her.

"Yeah, it's the only reason I wish camp had cable. I haven't seen any of it aside from the DVDs I have," she said.

"Awesome, but not about the part where there isn't any cable," I said, then stopped as we heard the door to the cabin open. Brianna and I stepped out of backstage.

"I was wondering where you took her," Aislin said as she jumped up onto the stage.

"Here, obviously," Brianna said with a smirk. Aislin rolled her eyes.

"It's time for the campfire," Aislin said. Brianna gave an exaggerated sigh.

"Fine," she said grumpily. We waked outside. While Brianna and I had been in her cabin, the sun had started to set. The golden light reflected over the ocean and reminded me of a painting a friend of mine made last year in art class. We sat down in the front row of the benches surrounding the campfire and waited for a few more people to take their seats.

"We didn't have to be here so early," Brianna complained after the five minutes we had to wait before the Apollo kids, who were apparently leading some sing-along's, finished setting up the few instruments they had with them.

"We had to wait for some more people to come back from sword fighting. There are still a few people there cleaning up. Besides, you're just bitter because you don't like to sing in front of other people," Aislin retorted.

"I can sing very well, thank you."

"I never said that you couldn't sing, I said that you couldn't in front of other people," Aislin said. This argument lasted for a while, but they eventually stopped when Brianna said that she would sing. While Aislin was busy looking dumbfounded, the Apollo cabin started the sing-along's.

It looked like almost all of the campers were there. I didn't see Poppy or the tall guy that I saw in the arena earlier. _Why am I thinking about him? _My thoughts were cut short as shouting rose from the opposite side of the clearing.

Several people dashed into the firelight from the darkness. They must've been from the sword fighting class that Aislin mentioned. I saw that the guy that I had been randomly thinking about was there, but quickly looked away because I felt awkward looking at him.

"Chiron!" shouted a short girl with cocoa skin and black hair, "The camp is under attack!" This caused most of the campers around the fire to stand up and either draw their weapons or go off to try and find one. I looked over towards the arena, where they had just come from, and saw a lot of looming black shapes moving towards us through the darkness.

"Taika and Seth," Chiron said, "Go fetch the campers that aren't here from their cabins, then report back to what your cabins are supposed to do. Everyone else, go to your assignments!" he finished, his voice raising at the end as to address the entire crowd of campers. The girl who had told Chiron that the camp was under attack, who I assumed was Taika, rushed off in one direction while the guy with white hair, most likely Seth, went in another.

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked Brianna, talking fairly loudly so she could hear me over the chorus of people and a guy with black hair who was shouting instructions at people.

"No idea," Brianna answered, "The camp hasn't been attacked since the Titan war, and before that the Unclaimed campers were part of the Hermes cabin. I guess you could come with me if you wanted."

I followed her as she ran to her cabin. Brianna ducked inside for a moment, then came out with two swords. As she handed one of them to me, I heard more shouting and saw that the things attacking the camp had moved into the light. They were all monsters, each a hectic mix of just about anything. They didn't match any sort of Greek myth that I'd seen, in fact, they didn't match _any _myth I'd heard.

"What _are_ those?" I asked Brianna. She shook her head slowly.

"I don't have a clue, but they can't be good. Come on, we're supposed to be getting any of those things that come too close to the cabins," she said, then whirled away without waiting for me. We went to the main loop of cabins, and sure enough, there were a lot of monsters that had slipped by the group near the campfire. There were several campers already defending this post, but not enough. I looked to the side and saw a huge one approaching. It was around six and a half feet high with black alligator skin and tusks. I jumped as it swung its tail at me in attempt to knock me over. It was slightly off balance, so I took the opportunity to slice the sword through its shoulder. I was thinking that I'd have to chop off the head in order to kill it, but to my surprise, it just dissolved into sand.

"Behind you!" I heard someone shout. I ducked purely on instinct then slashed up. I was rewarded with a face full of sand. Looking to see who had warned me, I saw that it had been Poppy. She was on the poppy-covered roof of her cabin, shooting the monsters with arrows. I nodded my thanks to her, and she smiled at me before returning to the task at hand.

I wove behind the first row of cabins and into the second one. There weren't many demigods back there, but there were still a fair amount of monsters. I snuck up behind another beast that had its back turned. This one looked more like a hippo, but with torn armor. Were all of these creatures just random? I sliced through it with the off-balance sword, turning it into the disgusting sand.

I continued to turn the monsters into the sand for who knows how long. When I was using the sword, I noticed that I sort of stepped into the state of being half aware of my surroundings and not really thinking. It helped though, since I probably would've been really freaked out had I been paying attention. With a jolt, I came back to reality when I nearly tripped over the brazier that contained the campfire. Glancing around, I realized there was nobody else near the campfire. The flames in the brazier were small, colored black and red. I heard a hiss coming from behind me. Twining around a few of the seats, I saw what looked like a big snake coming out of the shadows. At first I thought that the fire reflected off of its eyes, but corrected myself when I saw that the eyes were glowing a pale yellow like candlelight. It came fully into the ring of light, and I realized that there was a second head attached to the other end.

"The Amphisbaena," I said to nothing in particular. This thing was pretty much the mother - or father - of every serpent, according to the myths. Even though I knew about it, I didn't remember how I was supposed to get rid of it. I couldn't remember a single tale of some hero going on a quest to slay it, and now it was going to attack me. Go figure.

With a sudden lunge, it jumped at me. I narrowly avoided having its fangs sink into my arm, which would've been very bad seeing how it was poisonous. I stretched out and lunged at one of the necks, but it swerved and dodged the sword. I shortly went into the trance and didn't think about what I was doing, but simply let that other part of me decide. None of the other demigods seemed to notice that I was alone fighting the Amphisbaena, but if they did they probably assumed it was just another of the chaotic monsters that they were dealing with elsewhere. Eventually I got between the two heads and chopped one of them off. One side faded to dust, but was quickly replaced so that there were two heads yet again. How was I supposed to get rid of this thing?

_Maybe,_ I thought to myself, _the Amphisbaena is more like Geryon, where you have to get all three of the hearts at once. How would I do that? _The answer came to me soon enough. Each time one of the Amphisbaena's heads went out to attack, it coiled before it extended. When it's coiled, the heads are closer together and yet away from the body, which would be a golden opportunity to take both of the heads off at once. However, it was really hard to get near it when it was coiled since it was just about to attack.

At about this time, somebody finally acknowledged the fact that I wasn't fighting an ordinary monster. I heard that person shout, and so did the Amphisbaena. It was momentarily distracted, and I managed to chop both of the heads off at once. And I was right, the entire Amphisbaena slowly crumbled into dust. As it went, I noticed that all of the other monsters attacking the camp were dissolving at the same rate.

_Dong._

I jumped, already wondering what was happening now. I looked up, from where the sound was coming from to see a huge bell fading into existence.

_Dong._

The other campers started to head towards the campfire, obviously able to see the bell hovering overhead.

_Dong._

The bell didn't look like a mirage anymore. It looked pretty solid, and it was roughly the size of the Liberty Bell.

_Dong._

Most all of the campers were gathered around the campfire by now, but I was the only one standing in the middle. I would've backed into the crowd if something else hadn't caught my attention. That something happened to be what seemed like mist swirling into shapes, though they were indistinct.

_Dong._

The shapes became more clear, turning into numbers and scenes. With a start, I realized that the I recognized several of the scenes. They were all from history, like the Blitz and when Heracles killed the Neman Lion.

_Dong._

The numbers became dates, at the scenes continued to swirl in a fantastic light show in a dome over the campfire. I watched as Alexander the Great held his sword up before his army when they were invading the Persians. That particular scene made me uneasy, though I couldn't say exactly why.

_Dong._

The ADD part of me wondered how many times it was going to go off. The most recent would've made seven.

_Dong._

What was this even about? I assumed this didn't happen very often if it had at all. Everyone else was staring up at the mirage like it was magical, which it probably was once I thought about it.

_Dong. _

A scene flew past that seemed to be Benedict Arnold siding with the Patriots. These weren't just ancient history like what this camp was about, it was all of history. All of them things people had faced just to make the world what it is today.

_Dong._

There were also modern scenes. I saw New York under attack by what looked like a giant storm cloud as well as a monster from a junk heap.

_Dong._

That was the eleventh toll. I was wondered if it was going to stop at twelve, twenty four, or if it was going to stop at all. Hopefully it would since I didn't feel like standing there for the rest of eternity.

_Dong._

The images, bright against the night sky, didn't fade. They all turned gold, then slowly began to change shape.

_Dong._

At the thirteenth toll, the gold seemed to melt off of the dome, leaving words written in ancient Greek. A lone drop of the mirage rolled off of the top of the dome, and like a teardrop, fell right towards me. I thought for sure that I was going to be burned by what seemed to be liquid gold, until it stopped right above my head and changed shape yet again. The mirage molded into a group of scrolls then proceeded to rotate around my head while the last of the words formed in the sky. It said something that had been bothering me for nearly a year, something that I tried to push into the back of my mind. It read: _One loved by all shall meet his end, One will be betrayed by another called friend, One love shall conquer all, Before Olympus begins to fall. _

It was the same as the post-it note that I had found.

"It looks like you have a quest, daughter of Clio," Chiron said to me. Clio, I realized, was the muse of history. It made perfect sense that I was her daughter, with the memories. They were my identity. It was the other part of what Chiron said that made me nervous.

"What do you mean, I have a quest?" I asked hesitantly, already knowing the answer.

"It means that you are to have two people leave with you on a journey to stop our foes and fulfill the prophecy," he said calmly.

"Who am I supposed to take with me?" I questioned.

"Aislin and Brianna are not allowed to leave the camp due to the… excursion to the museum, so we will have to take volunteers," he answered. That wasn't good. "Who would like to go on Alexandria's quest?" Chiron announced.

"I volunteer Jake!" someone shouted. There were several nods of agreement before Chiron beckoned someone to come to the front of the crowd so they could be seen. The campers parted as a guy reluctantly came up to the front. He was about average height, looked Asian, and had what was pretty much a permanent scowl on his face. However, he did seem like one of those people that ended up popular whether they wanted it or not.

"Jake," Chiron said, "you have been at camp for a long time, even though you weren't claimed since last summer. I'm going to send you on this quest simply because it needs to have someone with experience. You have never had the chance to leave on one before, so this will be a new opportunity." He waited for a response, but Jake continued to just scowl at him. It didn't seem to bother Chiron, so he asked for volunteers again.

"I'll go!" someone shouted over the voices that were carrying out hushed conversations. The voice came from someone who was already in the front of the crowd. It belonged to the guy with the white hair, Seth. Chiron nodded.

"The quest will leave in the morning! The wounded are to go to the infirmary where the Apollo cabin will tend to them. The rest of you are to either help clean up or get go to your cabins for lights out," he told everyone before heading off. Everyone started to disperse, and I noticed that Brianna was coming up to me.

"I guess I'll show you our cabin," she said before leading me back to the Muse cabin. I had everything with me, so there was no need to return to the Unclaimed cabin. Once we were inside, Brianna started to talk.

"You're really lucky to go on a quest," she told me.

"It's too bad I don't know who I'm going with," I responded. She actually laughed.

"You'll get to know them, but if you want a rundown I'll give you one. Jake is a son of Tyche, the goddess of fame and luck. He's basically never happy and he's sarcastic most of the time. He's been here about as long as I have. We both fought in the Hermes cabin during the Titan war even though we were both Unclaimed. Seth, I have to say, is basically his complete opposite. Seth's mom is Chione, and where Jake is ridiculously lucky, Seth seems to have a lot of bad luck. Maybe the bad luck is because he's way too nice, but that doesn't really make sense if you believe in the whole karma thing. It'll be interesting to see if they balance each other out," Brianna finished. While she was talking, she had taken her Wicked drawstring bag that she had at the museum and thrown some stuff into it. She handed it to me. "I don't know if that's everything you'll need, but it's everything I can think of at the moment. When you find it lacking in something later, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so' even though it'll be about my lousy packing skills." I smiled.

"Well, I guess I should get some sleep," I said. Brianna nodded. Then gestured at the beds set into the wall.

"The bed closest to the bathroom is mine, but you can have your pick of any of the others," she told me. I randomly flopped down on the bed after changing into borrowed pajamas then continuously stared up at the ceiling. The lights went out soon enough, so I just stared into the darkness.

Even when I closed my eyes, it seemed like I could see the lights of the mirage glimmering all around me.

…**Well that took forever. Sorry for the wait. So my computer is finally unbroken, but it was broken when this chapter had been started by my cousin SomniumAstrum. She had already started it and insisted on finishing it even though she had a lot of stuff to do. So it took a while. Hope you liked it though :D**

**Disclaimer: SomniumAstrum wrote this chapter as well as chapter two. I own Alexandria and Jake, Somnium owns Seth, and SpiritusAstrum owns Poppy. Rick Riordan owns Percy Jackson, obviously. I'm probably forgetting something else, though chances are that I don't own that either.**

**If you want to know who the crap these people are and what's happening, I'd suggest reading **_**Gem of the Sea**_** by SomniumAstrum, **_**Flower of Sleep **_**by SpiritusAstrum, and **_**In Black and White **_**by MinimusAstrum. They all run parallel!**

**Review, people! For the free imaginary candy!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Wake up!" Brianna yelled over to me. My half-conscience self didn't feel like obeying her, so I mumbled something that even I couldn't understand. Brianna apparently didn't like this answer, so she threw something at me. This mystery object was hard, and at the moment didn't make me appreciate her good aim.

"Ow," I groaned into the pillow, "What was that for?"

"You have to get up and get ready for the quest," she said. Oh yeah. That. I got out of the bed and got dressed. From the top of the pile of clothes Brianna let me borrow, I randomly dragged out a neon green tanktop, the Beatles shirt, and a pair of jeans. The only reason I wore the tanktop underneath was because the Beatles shirt was made out of suspiciously thin material. I wanted to wear my Wicked hoodie, but it was kind of gross from the fight last evening with what I suspected to be monster dust on it.

I looked over at Brianna, who was lying on her bed and listening to music. I looked over at the clock, but couldn't see it. I spent about five minutes looking for it before I found it underneath the bed I had been using, which proved that it was the object that Brianna threw at me a while ago. I returned it to my side table so it couldn't be used as a weapon again.

I grabbed the bag Brianna had packed the night before and headed out of our cabin. Brianna saw me leaving and waved.

"See you!" she yelled from her bed behind the stage as I went out into the fresh air. It smelled like dusty old stuff in our cabin, though I hadn't really realized it until I came back outside.

I walked to the big house, going by most of the minor gods' cabins on the way. Poppy was outside, but it looked like she was sleeping, which was weird. But then as I thought about it, I determined that it wouldn't be so strange after all considering that her dad was the god of sleep. Just a weird place to sleep.

The camp was utterly quiet. Most people didn't get up this early, aside from one of the cabins that was painted a pale shiny yellow with white clouds. It looked like three or so kids were up on the roof, but they weren't saying a word. Instead, they were watching the sun rise over the ocean.

When I got to the big house Seth and Chiron where on the porch. Neither of them were talking either. Seth nodded a hello to me, and I waved back. I sat down on the porch swing and looked out over the camp. It felt wrong to break the silence, plus the fact that being near Seth made me nervous.

I had liked different guys at school. Mostly people who weren't even in my group of friends. The issue usually was that I was too nervous to actually say anything, so nothing happened. Which is mainly the reason why I've never had a boyfriend before. No guy wants to hang out with me when I'm not even talking.

I guessed that this was going to be an issue on the quest. Taking a deep breath, I did my best to push _any _feelings- even guilt about not calling my dad- away so that I could focus. After sitting on the porch swing for a long time with my eyes closed, I opened them to find that Jake was coming towards the porch.

"Let's go," he mumbled once he was close enough for us to hear.

"Well," Chiron began, "it seems like it is time to start your quest."

"Where are we supposed to go?" I asked after a pause.

"I couldn't be sure," Chiron said while walking over to get something off of a windowsill. His hooves made empty noises as they hit the porch. "But these showed up this morning."

Chiron handed me three plane tickets. I looked at the labels, and it said that they went to PHL, wherever that was. I asked Chiron, but Seth answered instead.

"It's Philadelphia."

"Oh," I said, thinking. What could Philadelphia have to do with our quest? While I was thinking, Seth asked Chiron a different question.

"Don't we usually have to see the oracle for something like this?"

"Usually," Chiron admitted, "but this was obviously a quest sent by a god. That and the fact that the Oracle usually only grants one quest out at a time. Between the two factors, Mr. D agreed that it wouldn't be necessary.

"Mr. D is here?" Seth asked.

"He was, but he's gone again. The solstice is tomorrow, and the gods are preparing themselves, it seems. This doesn't look like it will be a good solstice council…" Chiron said, breaking off as he noticed the van pulling up. It said Delphi Strawberry Co. on the side in big block letters, and it had Argus driving it. Argus's eyes were focused on the porch, where we were.

"Looks like it's time to go," I said, getting up. Chiron nodded.

"Good luck," he said before going back inside the Big House.

I had already started walking after Seth, so I almost didn't catch what Jake said.

"They'll need it," he muttered.

oooo

The security line at the airport was barely moving. It was a Monday at the airport, and the place was totally packed. I was trying to ignore Seth and Jake- who happened to be arguing about the outcome of the most recent game of Capture the Flag- so that I could think. Philadelphia didn't even make sense. It had nothing to do with friends betraying each other or people loved by all meeting an end. There was just no good reason. I was thinking about this when another thought interrupted me.

"How are we going to get weapons through the security gate?" I asked Seth when they had paused in the argument.

"Most of them turn into something else. Let me see the knives that Brianna gave you," he said to me. I reached over to the scabbard on my belt, which I had completely forgotten was there. Right before we left, Brianna had run up to the van and given it to me, saying that she knew she was forgetting something. It was a belt with a double scabbard on it, and a knife in each. One of the knives was a good bit longer than the other and curved, while the other was thin, short, and straight. I had examined them while in the van. The smaller one of them was celestial bronze, bright and shiny. It looked new. The hilt was red leather and there were music notes carved into the blade. It said Melody on it, and it altogether looked like something Brianna would have. The other knife looked a bit older. It was straight until it came to the end of the blade, where it curved. I recognized it as an older Bowie knife- they were popular during the Civil War- only it was made of celestial bronze as well. It didn't seem to have a name.

The only reason I had forgotten about Melody and the Bowie knife was the fact that everybody ignored them. Here I was, a teenager with a knife, and people found it totally normal.

I handed the knives over to Seth. He looked at them, and the scabbard, and then asked if he could have the scabbard too. I nodded and gave it to him. He pushed the two handles down at once, and to my surprise, they became a pager in a leather case. I clipped it back on my belt, surprised.

"You're lucky I've seen Brianna do that before. Otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it. Weapons rarely ever turn into electronics- usually just bracelets and trinkets. I know that Percy Jackson- that son of Poseidon who saved the world- has one that turns into a ballpoint pen. Though apparently it doesn't get lost."

"Thanks," I said to Seth, looking back at him. We made eye contact, so I quickly looked away, pretending to see how far along in the line we were.

"What are you going to do about your sword?" I asked, gesturing to the weapon. It was curved and from what I saw of it seemed to be a Greco-Persian model. For some reason he looked at the sword guiltily.

"It doesn't turn into anything, but people aren't usually able to see it unless they know what they're looking for. It's weird that you could see it off the bat," he added.

"That is weird," I admitted. _What isn't?, _I added in my head. I turned to Jake, who was, to my surprise, right behind me.

"Do you have any weapons?" I asked him.

"What if I do?" he retorted. I hated it when people back talked me. It was a major pet peeve of mine.

"What if you don't?" I answered, trying to stay calm. Jake made a face and reached into his hoodie pocket, pulling out Jolly Ranchers and poker chips. He popped a blue Jolly Rancher into his mouth, and then put the other stuff away.

"The poker chips are darts, throwing knives, and smoke bombs depending on the color," he said while sucking on his candy.

"Alright then. You could have just said that in the first place," I said, exasperated. We were finally at the front of the line, and we went through the security gate without a problem.

Before long we were on the plane. It was a small one, with three seats on one side of the isle and two on the other. Jake and Seth were on one side, the side with two seats, while I was in the row with three seats next to a stranger who promptly stated to doze off.

I had been on air planes before and heights held no issues for me. The plane was probably safer than the elevator in my apartment building. I listened to my iPod the entire flight, which actually wasn't that long. A bit over an hour.

When we got off we didn't have to go to baggage claim, unlike everyone else. Instead we just left, going into the streets of Philadelphia. We took a cab to the city, and to my relief, it wasn't the cab from hell. I suppose the Grey Sisters only serviced New York.

"Should we find something to eat?" Seth asked me.

"I guess. Where should we go?" I asked in return.

"I don't know. Let's see what there is…" he suggested.

This was followed by walking around downtown Philadelphia for a long time. I wasn't totally sure that we weren't moving in circles, but Seth seemed to know what he was doing, so I didn't argue.

"Why are we just walking around?" Jake asked irritably. I looked at him. He had a habit of letting you forget he was there, and I really didn't like it.

"We're trying to find something to eat."

"Well, you're doing a bad job of it. We've passed a dozen places already."

"Fine then," I said, somewhat angry with him. He could've told us that he wanted to stop at any time. "We'll go here," I said, gesturing to a Dunkin' Doughnuts.

"Sounds fine to me," Seth said agreeably. At least there weren't _two _Jakes with me. When we went into the shop, a chime went off. A girl sitting in one of the booths jumped at the sound.

"Zeke? Ula?" Seth asked, sounding bewildered. I squinted a little at them, realizing that they were the people who I had heard were on another quest. The girl who jumped, presumably Ula, turned around and looked at us.

"Seth?" Zeke asked in return. Zeke was a somewhat average looking person- dirty blonde hair, medium build and height, bluish eyes. His hair was just long enough to keep falling in his face, and as I watched he brushed it back. I'd guess that he was my age, and the girl too.

Ula, on the other hand, wasn't very normal looking. She had dark olive skin and extremely curly black hair. I don't know what was up with her hair, but it super frizzy and uneven. It looked like it had been lopped off by someone wearing a blindfold, particularly because it was just about chin length in the back and longer than that in the front. She was wearing really goofy shorts that looked like they were made of black corduroy, a black t-shirt with neon writing on it, and dark grey pumas that looked like they had been white at one point in time. And to make her look even stranger, her eyes were the color of chocolate milk. She must've had contacts in.

"What are you two doing here?" Seth asked them.

"I could ask you the same thing," Ula replied.

"Well, the explanation is long at best," Seth said, sliding into the booth next to Zeke. I would've done that too since Zeke looked much more sane, and I hesitated to sit next to Ula. "But my guess would be that you two are on a date," Seth finished, laughing. Ula made a face and Zeke pushed Seth out of the booth. I cracked up at that. Seth was laughing even harder since he was on the floor.

"Who even laughs at their own jokes that much anyway?" Ula criticized, joking. I decided that I could probably manage to sit next to her for a while, and therefore slid into the booth.

"I'm Alexandria," I told Ula when she looked over at me. I thought about offering to shake her hand, but that may have come off a little weird.

"I'm Ula," she said in return. She sat with her arms folded, leaning on the table. I threw away any idea of shaking her hand. "What cabin are you in?" she asked me. "Athena?"

"No," I said, "I'm in the Muse cabin. My mother is Clio, the goddess of history."

"Cool."

Seth decided to pick himself up off of the floor at this time because the cashier was giving him a dirty look. I smiled again.

"But really," Seth said after we'd all calmed down, "What are you doing? Last I heard you two were in the dream world. Of course, I guess the dream world could be around here… didn't think of that."

It's not here. Well, it wasn't here. But we came out here," Ula said. I didn't get it, so I just stared at her. "That's the best I can do," she defended, shrugging.

For the next half hour or so Zeke and Ula told us what had been up with their quest. I tried to follow, but got lost. I _did _listen though, so it wasn't useless. They told us about our former plan of going to the Underworld, how they ended up getting there after being chased by an insane mob, and about why Hades wouldn't listen to them. Later they found out that Ares and Eris had been behind this entire mess when they killed Susa, the third member of their quest. Finally they mentioned that they went to the dream world before getting sent here.

I made a mental note that Ares and Eris seemed to be the cause of a lot of the weird stuff that had been happening. Our quest felt to me like it was intertwined with theirs, and usually my hunches about things like that were right.

As Seth told them about what they had missed while away, I scanned the Dunkin' Donuts. There was a TV on the wall across from us, droning on and on about weird weather across the country. There was a hurricane headed towards the Great Lakes and weird purple fog heading through Baton Rouge. The hurricane didn't strike me as supernatural, but I got a really weird feeling about the fog. Almost like I had seen it before, though I know I hadn't. I would have remembered. I always do.

Zeke followed my line of vision and saw what I was watching. He studied the newscast, the one about the hurricane since the fog one was over.

I turned my attention back to the story, which sounded like it was about to finish.

"So," Seth said, "Since Alex didn't know anyone besides Brianna and Aislin, who weren't allowed to go, I volunteered and Jake was volunteered."

"Who's Jake?" Ula asked after a pause.

"Him," I said, pointing to Jake. He was sitting at another table, and I had all but forgotten that he was there. It was really getting on my nerves.

"JAKE," I announced loudly to get his attention.

"What?" he snapped. He had a lollypop in his mouth.

"Do you have anything to add?" I asked him, peeved. He wasn't even helping. A lot of luck the son of luck brought us.

"Yeah. Let's stop wasting time and actually _do _something instead of hanging around in a freaking donut shop," he replied irritably. I _really _wanted to murder him.

To get my mind off of thoughts of murder, I decided to talk to Ula since I had decided that she wasn't completely crazy. Just a little.

"I like your bracelet," I told her. The bracelet was goldstone. It was a gold and glittered in the sunlight, hence the name.

"Thanks," she said, "but it's not really a bracelet. It's actually my sword."

"Awesome! I don't really have my own weapon. Just a couple of borrowed knives. What's your sword's name?" I asked her.

"Journey," she said, after a pause. This apparently had some sort of meaning to Zeke since he looked surprised, but I didn't have the faintest idea why. I wondered what kind of sword I would have and what I would name it, and for no reason at all Seth's sword popped into my mind. I pushed the thought away; Seth's sword was his. Where did that come from?

"Where are you going to go after this?" Zeke asked Seth.

"No idea," he said.

"Actually," I said, "I think we're going to Baton Rouge."

"Why?" Seth asked me. I didn't feel like reciting the news.

"I'll explain later, but for now we should get going," I said, getting up out of the booth. I wondered why I said we were going to the purple mist, but figured my subconscious had picked up on something and that I was just being slower than normal. "I'm going to get something to eat to take with me. You want something?" I asked Seth.

"Sure," he said, so I walked off to the counter. I got two glazed donuts, leaving Jake out. God knew he had enough candy hidden around.

I went back to the booth, and Seth slid out and took one of the donuts out of my hand. I made eye contact with him again and felt awkward, so I just turned around and left the building. Seth came after me, and I heard the bell as Jake came a few steps behind.

"So why are we going to Baton Rouge?" Seth asked as soon as we were out.

"Did you see what was on the TV?" I asked him.

"No. There was a TV in there? I haven't watched TV in a really long time…" Seth faded, thinking.

"Well anyway," I said, interrupting his thoughts before I myself was sidetracked, "They said that Baton Rouge was covered in weird purple fog," I said, and then after a pause, "I feel like I've seen the fog before." I looked over to Seth. He was looking guilty for no reason. _Again. _I was going to ask why, but Jake snorted.

"We're going to waste time because you thought you've seen some sort of fog before?" he criticized. I felt like growling at him, but didn't know what Seth would make of that.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, we are," I said, glaring, "That is, unless _you _have a better idea."

That kept him quiet.

"How do you plan on getting the tickets? I don't think we have enough money, plus the flights are all probably booked by now," Seth pointed out. He looked over at me, and I self-consciously pushed a stray piece of hair back in place.

"I don't know. We'll figure it out when we get there," I said, hailing a cab. We got in and had the cab take us to the airport. Nobody said a word.

As soon as we went into the airport's check-in, my eyes were drawn to three people who were freaking out. They were arguing until the one of them looked around, spotted us, and came towards us. She made a beeline for Jake, and I mentally slapped him.

"We can't use these tickets to Baton Rouge," the woman, who's hair was streaked with grey, said to us, "do you think you can use them?" Jake made a face and started to answer, but I interrupted.

"We'd love them!" I said happily. She looked over at me, seeming to notice me for the first time. She nodded, and then stormed away to her family. They left as soon as she met back with them.

"That was convenient," Seth said. Jake snorted.

"Not if you're trying to prove that you can make it without luck," Jake muttered. Seth was already going towards the check-in and didn't seem to notice the comment. I, on the other hand, _pretended _not to notice.

We checked in **(I know there are issues with this but bear with me)**, went through security again, and went up to our gate. It was then that I looked at the screen with the flight times. I looked for our flight, then beckoned Seth over.

"Look," I said, tapping the screen unhappily, "The flight is delayed until one in the morning."

Seth didn't seem happy about that either. We'd be stuck in the airport for fourteen hours.

"It must be the fog," Seth said. "Cross your fingers that it _will _lift, and won't just be cancelled." "Yeah," I muttered. I went back to the hallway we had left our stuff in. There were other people camped out, using their laptops while they were plugged into the outlets in the wall. Seth told Jake about the delay, but Jake just said that they wouldn't cancel it.

We just sat there for a while. Seth was staring at the ceiling and Jake looked like he was playing Angry Birds on an iPod touch.

It felt like there was a sudden shift in the room. I looked around, wondering what was up. Everything was exactly as it had been. But if felt different.

Seth was looking around too, but Jake didn't seem to be disturbed. Neither did anyone else.

All of the sudden I felt exhausted, though I couldn't say why. It was about noon and I had had a full night's sleep. Seth looked tired too. Jake didn't. The rest of the world continued on, even though there were two demigods falling asleep for no reason.

An imaginary breeze blew through the hallway. Well, I thought it was imaginary at first until I realized it was blowing my hair around. Nothing normal seemed disturbed, aside from Seth. Seth had gone pale, so for a minute I thought that there was going to be a monster on the loose. Then to my surprise, he rested his head on his knees.

I threw away the monster attack idea.

But then what was it?

I couldn't stay awake any longer. I fought to keep my eyes open, figuring that I was just sleepy because I was bored. They were just excuses in my head, I knew.

My eyes closed. There was blackness for a while.

The first thought I had was that it was hot. Very hot. But dry too, like the desert. I kicked the covers off and opened my eyes, planning on going to turn my window fan. The apartment _could _get hot in the summer. I knew something was off even before I took in my surroundings.

The sheets I kicked off were more like blankets. Soft but very thick cotton. It was almost pitch black where I was, but my room had a nightlight in it because of the time I stubbed my toe in the dark and the nail ended up falling off. This wasn't my apartment.

I shuffled around, trying to think about what was happening. My mind was groggy, like I'd taken a nap. Napping? Since when did I nap?

Then it came back to me. Airport. Oh yeah.

But what on earth was I doing here? And where exactly _was _here anyway?

I kicked something over. Bending over, I fumbled for it in the dark. My hands touched it, and I tried to make sense of what it was. _Lantern, _I thought, and then realized I was right. A lantern with an oil burning wick. The oil was now leaking all over the thick rugs on the floor.

This seemed to real to be a dream. There's no reason to dream about being somewhere hot and knocking over a lantern.

Once I paused to listen, I realized that I could hear outside the tent, too. The hum of voices and the dull clank of metal. Horses in the distance.

A flickering light moved outside the tent. I tensed as the tent opened.

A short girl walked in. Dark brown hair, dark eyes. Olive skin. I could tell she was a girl because she was wearing a sort-of dress over her pants. The outfit was a bit crazy- the top was like a toga that came down to her knees, but she was wearing blue jeans underneath as well as worn out leather sandals.

I wondered what I was wearing, and looked down to see that they weren't Brianna's borrowed clothes. Instead, they were some sort of cotton pajamas.

"You're here," she remarked quietly.

"Yeah, about that," I started, "Where exactly _is _here?"

"I'm not sure. But I wasn't sure if you were ever going to come. At least in my lifetime, anyway. You weren't here the last time."

"What last time?" I said, utterly confused. "Okay, start from the beginning. Who are you, why are you here, and more importantly, why am _I _here."

To my surprise, the girl laughed.

"I'm Christina, but I usually go by Christie," she said. A modern name. "But I've also been Theodorus and more recently, Margaret."

"…_what?_"

Another laugh.

"I'm usually around. Either here or sorting through random disasters every solstice and full moon. It's what we all do."

"Who exactly is we?" I asked her suspiciously. She smiled at me. White teeth in the lantern light. I looked away from her, studying the tent again. When I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, Christie wasn't Christie. She was tall, wearing armor. And she wasn't a she out of the corner of my eye. Figuring it was a trick of the light, I tried it again.

No tall figure this time, but it still wasn't Christie. Instead it was a hunched over figure with grey hair. As I watched the tent and studied her out of the corner of my eye, the figure shifted again and became the tall armored man. I looked straight at her, and she became herself. She smiled at me again, a knowing look on her face.

"We includes you, by the way. And that's the reason you're here." Christie stepped out of the tent. Tired of the game of cat-and-mouse, I followed her out.

Luckily for me since I was in pajamas, my tent was on top of a hill, mostly by itself. But I didn't realize that.

I could see hundreds of thousands of tents and lanterns bobbing below me. Small tents, large ones. Horses. People. Almost all of the tents were shadowy and see-through, but there were several that were solid like mine.

"We come back in our dreams every full moon and solstice to keep ourselves to ourselves. To make sure we're not an empty husk or the same person we were before."

The same person as we were before. Something snapped in my brain, and I knew where this was heading.

"It's the deal we're in," Christie said, looking over at me. "Even though I'm still Christie, I started to tap into who I was. Having your soul washed in the river Lethe can cause some complications if you're not forced to go back and remember who you were and what you could improve upon. Margaret spent time as Theodorus, and I've spent time as the both of them. We have to finish our mission every night, or we don't wake up as ourselves."

"They're past lives…"

"You've got that right," Christie said.

"But… who am I? Or really, who was I?"

"Oh don't worry. You're still them. It's why you're here."

Christie looked over and smiled at me. The shadows warped and she became the armored man again. I looked straight at Christie, but he dissolved. From the corner of my eye, I saw him look over at me with his dark eyes.

"It's good to see you again, _Megas Alexandros."_

**Yeaaah… It's about time another chapter was posted. This is Somnium…again. My cousin has abandoned FF, and her account has finally passed into my hands. Hence the update. Over 5300 words this chapter! Doesn't make up for the 6 month wait though, does it? PM me if you have any questions, and **_**please **_**comment. I want to know what you think of the weird past life business. :3**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or anything you recognize from everyday life. Though I do now own Seth, Jake, Alex, Ula, Zeke, Susa, and Christie.**

**Review! :3 I'll give you an imaginary cookie!**


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